Page 20 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 20
plex Gateways
functioning of port systems evolved in the sense of a focalization and
a polarization on the internal and more technical processes, especially
those involved in the acquisition of higher levels of performance (Fiskin
and Cerit 2020).
The suggestions aiming at a broadening of the analytical gaze out-
side the port areas have also produced a new current of studies, which,
however, has first of all extended towards the perimeter the very me-
chanical and technical approach adopted to analyse the inner side of port
systems, rather than integrating external socio-economic dynamics into
port performance research (Ducruet, Itoh, and Joly 2015: Munim and
Schramm 2018).
Recently, some new insights in the sense of a more careful consider-
ation of the human contribution to the port economic performance came
firstly from the stream of comparative port studies (Ensslin et al. 2018),
and secondly from the application of complexity theory to the field of
port-system studies (Goulielmos, Pardali, and Miliaraki 2007). However,
both these approaches are awaiting further development, and of now
they are only presenting the first results of some innovative research ef-
forts, still not giving us a complete map of a substantially new territory.
On the other side, studies on port work (and workers) have gained a
new momentum since the year 2000, with the publication of the ponder-
ous Dock Workers: International Explorations in Comparative Labour History
1790–1970, in two volumes (Davis et al. 2000). As already stated, until
now this research stream has remained connected more with trade union
history and the social history of workers and their environment (work-
ing, living, housing conditions, processes of socialization, labour culture
and identities, family and social connections, and so on), than with the
economic side of port-system studies.
During the years following 2000, the speeding up in the evolution
of the entire global commercial connectivity system directed researchers
towards a more holistic approach, considering the growing imbrication
of economic and social factors in seaport-systems development. Starting
with the extension to port studies of the analytical schemes of ‘classi-
cal’ industrial relations studies (Barton and Turnbull 2002; Turnbull and
Wass 2007), to a growing interest in the outcomes related to the privati-
zation of port activities (Reveley and Tull 2008), researchers recognized
seaports as frontiers for the massification and work downsizing process-
20
functioning of port systems evolved in the sense of a focalization and
a polarization on the internal and more technical processes, especially
those involved in the acquisition of higher levels of performance (Fiskin
and Cerit 2020).
The suggestions aiming at a broadening of the analytical gaze out-
side the port areas have also produced a new current of studies, which,
however, has first of all extended towards the perimeter the very me-
chanical and technical approach adopted to analyse the inner side of port
systems, rather than integrating external socio-economic dynamics into
port performance research (Ducruet, Itoh, and Joly 2015: Munim and
Schramm 2018).
Recently, some new insights in the sense of a more careful consider-
ation of the human contribution to the port economic performance came
firstly from the stream of comparative port studies (Ensslin et al. 2018),
and secondly from the application of complexity theory to the field of
port-system studies (Goulielmos, Pardali, and Miliaraki 2007). However,
both these approaches are awaiting further development, and of now
they are only presenting the first results of some innovative research ef-
forts, still not giving us a complete map of a substantially new territory.
On the other side, studies on port work (and workers) have gained a
new momentum since the year 2000, with the publication of the ponder-
ous Dock Workers: International Explorations in Comparative Labour History
1790–1970, in two volumes (Davis et al. 2000). As already stated, until
now this research stream has remained connected more with trade union
history and the social history of workers and their environment (work-
ing, living, housing conditions, processes of socialization, labour culture
and identities, family and social connections, and so on), than with the
economic side of port-system studies.
During the years following 2000, the speeding up in the evolution
of the entire global commercial connectivity system directed researchers
towards a more holistic approach, considering the growing imbrication
of economic and social factors in seaport-systems development. Starting
with the extension to port studies of the analytical schemes of ‘classi-
cal’ industrial relations studies (Barton and Turnbull 2002; Turnbull and
Wass 2007), to a growing interest in the outcomes related to the privati-
zation of port activities (Reveley and Tull 2008), researchers recognized
seaports as frontiers for the massification and work downsizing process-
20
